Before we talk about what it takes to be a cheap and good quality web host, let's get to the fundamental first.

What is a Web Host?
A web host is a service provider that places your web site on a computer which is connected to the internet. The term for this ‘computer' is called a server.

If you plan to own a new website, you will need to host your website on a web server. When your website goes live on the web server, online users can then browse your website on the Internet. Company that provides the web servers to host your website is called web hosting providers.

A web hosting provider will typically have a fast connection to the Internet housed in a physical building called 'data center' and they may host thousands of web sites on many servers. The web host essentially rents out space to you so that you can get your website up on the world wide web.

With a well-managed web host, you can free yourself from worrying the up-keep of complicated server technology and proper technical maintenance. That's the whole purpose of the web hosting companies. You should leave the technical work to web hosting professional while you focus on your own internet business.

There are three reasons that explain why the entire web hosting plans listed on this site are so cheap. Firstly, these web hosting providers divide a server into a certain number of entities and sell to the customers. With a single server, the companies manage to rent out to a few hundreds clients, thus reducing the cost tremendously.

Secondly, they use a Unix/Linux platform, a relatively cheaper platform than a Windows platform. If you ever wonder which platform is more suitable for your online business without going through all the nitty gritty of the features, the best bet would be going for Unix/Linux. Unix prides itself to have better reliability and stability which is essential to a web business. To understand more about the differences, you can read this article titled "Windows vs Linux Hosting".

Thirdly, the web hosts listed here all are well-established with huge capital to reinvest into customer acquisition and good infrastructure. More customers mean less operating cost. This is why big companies can afford to charge less for their hosting plan.

There are thousands of web hosting providers on the internet and how do you decide which one you should use? We, the editors of HostingChecker have established our own exclusive criteria that'll help you understand how we choose our top 10 web hosts.

The features that web hosting companies are offering are getting quite standard nowadays. There are 10 basic features that you'll need in a web host. You can find out more here.

To give a web host a competitive edge over others, more attractive features are very necessary. You'll find that many hosts are willing to give away free stuff that used to cost over $10 per month.

These are some of the advanced features that our top hosts are offering.

• Web Buider
  Many of our top 10 hosts offer powerful web builder program called SiteStudio. SiteStudio allows you to make sites without any html, FTP and HTTP knowledge. You can also build site on the fly while at home, school or even at work. Hostgator's SiteStudio has over 500 ready-made templates for you to choose from.

• Ecommerce Enabled
  If you are selling products on your site, you need a merchant account. A shopping cart is a useful tool if you have more than 1 product in different categories. SSL(Secured Sockets Layer) is a must-have if you need to receive valuable information such as your customers' credit card information. PowWeb, Hostgator and Lunarpages provide osCommerce shopping cart and shared SSL for your ecommerce needs.

• Marketing Package
  Most marketing package including search engine submission software, keyword generator and link checker. Some hosting companies like iPower have established partnership with Yahoo! Search (previously known as Overture) and Google Adwords to offer you pay-per-click credit to jump start your business.

What we've found out is a significant amount of the hosting complaints have something to do with the customer support. How well the support staff handles your issues can either make or break a hosting business. We believe that a host with a strong and dedicated support team is a host operating with integrity.

No matter if you are an expert or a novice in web hosting, you need a web host with good customer support system. What is the criteria of an excellent customer support? Let us explain.

• How big is the knowledge base?
  This is particularly important for those who want to search for quick answer without seeking direct assistance from customer support staff. Due to the huge database, normally it's searchable. Some web hosting providers will even make your life easier by making a interactive tutorial guiding you step by step in setting up your new account. Very useful for beginner.

• Responsive customer service staff.
  If you are too lazy to find the answer out of a big pool of database, get the direct answer from someone who knows it. Direct customer support comes in a few forms.
  a. Email support: This is the most basic support that all web hosting companies should have. A good email support includes the following:
  - fast response time. For example, Site5 response time is about 30 minutes in average.
  - answers are relevant
  
  b. Phone support: Normally, sales and technical support uses separate phone line. A good phone support staff knows what your problem is and answers with relevance. Hostgator is one of the few hosts that offers 24 hours phone support.
  
  c. Live Chat support: Probably the most effective way to get your issues solved is through live chat. Web hosts like Lunarpages, Hostgator and PowWeb have live chat support. However, it's not how many support channels that are available but how responsive it is of the staff.
  
  d. Forum: Once a hosting company gets bigger, setting up a forum is a wise move since the hosts can utilize the knowledge of their own customers to share knowledge among the customers. This will reduce the workload of the existing support staff so that they could focus on issues pertaining to their own company.

The best marketing method is by far from word of mouth. If you sign up for a web host and are satisfied with the performance, most likely you'll recommend to anyone who is looking for a good host. Big web hosting companies know about this concept so well that they would go all out to retain their existing customer. The more satisfied customers they have, the more popularity they'll get. We take this as an important indicator of how good a host is.

Netfirms top the popularity among our top 10 hosts.

In terms of reliability, we are looking at how redundant is the server, how often the companies backup the server and how well they handle emergency. "Redundant" means that if any of the Internet connections get interrupted, the alternate Internet connection will take over. PowWeb Load Balancing Technology is one of the best that we found to ensure your site is up 99.9% all the time.

As for speed, even though routing, web server set up and local area networks play a part in determining the speed of a site, the main concern of how fast your site is depends very much on the types of network connections.

A T1 line will offer data transfer rate of 1.5 Mbps (megabits per second), while a T3 line can supply data transfer rates of 43Mbps. OC-1 refers to a circuit that transmits 51.85Mbps. Higher levels are multiples of that speed. Ultra-High Speed OC3 and OC12 lines offers 155Mbps and 622Mbps respectively. Some hosting providers have connections to major internet backbones at the speed of OC48 (2488Mbps) and OC96 (4976Mbps).

Many hosting providers still connect to the Internet through T1, or T3 connections. This is not the case for our top 10 hosts- they are using OC (Optical Carrier) lines. Hostgator, for example, is using OC48 to connect your site to the internet.